Bring Me to Life

So, lately I've been thinking on what it means to bring a character to life.

With something as beloved (and widely known) as Shakespeare, at one point or another, the character you are portraying has been done before. And because everyone would react to stimuli differently, there is a myriad ways of approaching any given subject. What's more, the actor, in his or her personal life, may approach that same stimulus very differently than would their character.



So how does an actor bridge that difference to make even the smallest role fully fledged? The answer to that is different for each. But, there is one commonality: making choices. As an actor, during rehearsals one can experiment with those choices -- taking them from one extreme to the next -- in order to find the right fit. The difference is: in life we don't get that luxury of reliving the same moment over and over in order to perfect it.

I think that repetition is what gives an actor the ability to make things so natural so as to bring the character to life. For me, that process is not unlike how I imagine we all approach life: by reliving those moments over and over in our heads, trying to predict what the outcome would have been like had we made the choice  this way instead. That is the "real life" rehearsal, so when we encounter that situation again (or one similar to it) we have a tool kit to draw from. To face that challenge differently.

As a performer, I am bringing to life the author's vision, the director's vision, and my interpretation of that vision. One nice thing about having a director so full of ideas and vision is that the director is then a resource to discovering the path your character takes. The script pretty much lines it out, but the performer dictates how the character walks that path - their gait, cadence, inflections, subtle (and not so subtle) meanings with every word, every glance. The director/design crew have a unified (hopefully!) vision of how all the disparate parts fit and gel with each other. In that world, then, the actor's job becomes easy.

I can understand how someone would find that task (the one of an actor) daunting. What if I make the wrong choice? What if I forget a line? What if I make a mistake? Well, guess what? IT HAPPENS! How we react to those mistakes (in such a public forum no less!) is what makes it all the more human. Unless you are doing a one-man show, or you have a monologue as the sole character on the stage, you have a team up there with you. They have gone through the same process as you (making decisions on how their characters would react in any given situation). Moments like that, where the performer can truly show how well they know their character, is what gives life to any character. It makes them real.

Just as in reality, how we react to our environment is life. We may encounter a set path... but no one ever said you had to walk that path the exact same way as those before you. You will find new and amazing things to explore, to reveal. Definitely feel that you can draw inspiration from those that went before you. But please, please, please... make it, then, your own.

I think I'll stop there for now. Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments, or challenge what I've posted! Life is about discovery!

Until next time....